UPLAND SHOOTING. 
243 
they lay, 1 made some observation to my companion about his 
rashness in firing; when three more birds whirred out of the 
same bush in quick succession, and of course got away unshot 
at, all our barrels being empty. After I had loaded, yet an 
eighth bird got up a few yards ahead, having crept out, I 
imagine, while the dogs were at down charge, and I was fortu¬ 
nate enough to kill it also—thus bringing four Ruffed Grouse 
to bag, which were sprung one by one, or very nearly so, out 
of a thicket less than thirty feet in circumference. We ought 
certainly to have got one more bird, at least; and had we been 
as silent as we should, might possibly have bagged them all, for 
they all rose within four or five yards of our gun-muzzles, and 
the place was quite open and fair shooting ground. 
I never saw a more evident proof of the great propriety, and 
great gain, of attending strictly to the most minute rules of 
sportsmanship and woodcraft; like laws of military tactics, 
they can never be violated with impunity; and though we ob¬ 
serve them ninety-nine times, the violation on the hundredth 
will almost certainly prove disastrous. 
I know an instance of a good sportsman in the city of New- 
York, whose name I do not record, giving him the credit of a 
remarkable feat; because, being in business, it might injure 
him among those gentry of the street , who think no hunting but 
dollar-hunting respectable ! who actually brought to bag eight 
Pinnated Grouse, in succession, without himself moving from 
his ground, or his dog breaking its point. This occurred, some 
years since, on Martha’s Vineyard; but, as I have observed 
before, I know no authentic instance of the Ruffed Grouse ever 
lying in the same manner, after the separation of the broods. 
Before that period, they of course lie to the dog as the Quail, 
the Prairie Hen, or the Grouse of the British Isles. Hence, I 
consider the day fixed by our legislature for the end of close 
time, as too late in regard to the Ruffed Grouse. 
The constantly repeated tale, that the Ruffed Grouse when it 
alights in trees in companies, which it occasionally will do, in 
the spring, when eating the young buds, of which it is extremely 
